"What are you doing here?" I asked sternly.

"I"m..." Mu Huaitong cast around wildly for an excuse.

I stared at her, waiting to see what reason she would come up with.

"I"m a chauffeur. This man said he wasn"t feeling up to driving, so he called me to drive him." Mu Huaitong"s face beamed with innocence. "Teacher, I"m just doing a bit of honest work!"

I opened the backdoor and checked Manager Lu"s breath. I determined that he was still alive and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sheer fabrication." I crossed my arms and looked at Mu Huaitong.

"I really am a chauffeur, though," Mu Huaitong said earnestly.

"Oh? Show me the order on your phone, then, and your driver"s license." I put out my hand.

Mu Huaitong didn"t respond. Her expression became serious, and she said, "Teacher Shen, mind your own business."

"I wouldn"t get involved in other people"s business, but you aren"t other people. You"re my student." I sighed and went towards her. "Last night, were you the person scaring Manager Lu, trying to make him hallucinate being strangled?"

"If you want a person, it wasn"t me." Mu Huaitong"s gaze was fearless and direct. I believed her. She wasn"t an expert liar, she was just a little mischievous.

"But I think you know what happened?"

"Yes, I know what happened last night, although I didn"t take part." She muttered, "How could I, when I knew Teacher Shen worked at that company."

"And what about today?" I pointed at the comatose Manger Lu. "Why is he unconscious?"

"Just scared. It wasn"t hard," Mu Huaitong said disdainfully, "there"s no one in this whole world I can"t scare into fainting, oh, except for Teacher Shen."

I started to relax. If Mu Huaitong hadn"t taken part in yesterday"s events, and today she had only scared Manager Lu unconscious and been stopped by me before she could drive the car away, then her behavior only const.i.tuted a prank and wouldn"t go on her record. In this situation the police would only caution her. If she didn"t mend her ways, at most they would fine her or detain her for ten to fifteen days. It wasn"t a big problem.

After silently reciting these legal provisions to myself, I decided to caution Mu Huaitong on behalf of the police comrades. I told her that it was her first offense, and she shouldn"t haggle. If she dared to offend again, it would mean three days under detention as a warning.

"Where were you planning on taking him?" I asked.

"I was just going to drive around." Mu Huaitong"s gaze drifted around. It was clear she hadn"t had good intentions.

"What was going on yesterday, anyway? Why would someone want to scare Manager Lu, or drug him?"

"No one drugged him. The police won"t find anything when they examine the coffee cup." Mu Huaitong went on to explain, "It"s just that when the cleaning lady was clearing up his office she accidentally broke the outlet. She couldn"t repair it herself, and by some miraculous twist she ended up damaging the power supply. Playing The Ring on the TV was only a prank. If he was so scared he fainted from it, it was because he has his own personal ghosts. Teacher Shen didn"t faint, did you?"

I really hadn"t fainted. What Student Mu was saying made a lot of sense.

"What does the cleaning lady have against Manager Lu that made her want to scare him like that? And what personal ghosts does Manager Lu have?" Mu Huaitong seemed to know something about this, so I kept questioning her.

Mu Huaitong"s sweet smile at once changed into a serious expression. "I have a good friend. He killed her."

Killed her? But Manager Lu was a good person. He was very patient about teaching me as a new and inexperienced employee. There weren"t many people who would be that patient.

"What happened?" I asked. "Please tell me in detail."

"This was a girl named Yin Yaqiu," said Mu Huaitong. "The two of them were together when they were in university. Afterwards they stayed in H City to work, trying to save up money for a down payment on a house so they could get married. But one day, Yaqiu disappeared. Yaqiu"s relationship with her family was poor. Her family valued men over women. When she graduated from university, her family asked her to go back to her hometown to get married so her little brother could have her bride-price. She didn"t agree and broke off contact with her family. She had no close connections apart from Lu Guangxi. She went missing and no one even knew.

"Three years later, her mother came to H City to look for her daughter. It was then that she discovered her daughter had been missing all this time. She suspected that Lu Guangxi knew about it, so she frightened him in the middle of the night, trying to scare him into admitting the truth."

"I can understand her feelings, but you can"t act that way with no basis. You"ll get in trouble, and any testimony obtained that way can"t be used as evidence." It concerned me that Mu Huaitong and Yaqiu"s mother"s understanding of the law was so weak.

"If he really admitted it, would we leave it to the law to resolve?" Mu Huaitong tossed her long black hair. "We"d just do away with him ourselves. This type of man doesn"t deserve anything else."

This was bad. I said solemnly, "Student Mu, your ideas are very dangerous. I"ll tell you what you and the girl"s mother should do. First, report Yin Yaqiu missing. The police will investigate her relationships before her disappearance. If Lu Guangxi really was involved, he won"t escape the punishment of the law!"

"Can I trust you?" Mu Huaitong looked at me and said, "Teacher Shen, I"ve never had any faith in men."

I thought of her past experiences and understood Mu Huaitong"s malice towards men. Men did have many shortcomings. They were creatures that thought with their lower bodies. But I had always believed that faith, justice, ethics, morals, and law, all these intangible things, could make men restrain their base desires and live with clear consciences.

At least that was what I had always demanded of myself.

"Student Mu, at this moment I am not an ordinary man, I am your teacher. Until you enter society, I am willing to stand in front of you, become the tree that shelters you from the harsh winds and rains of existence. Therefore, you can trust me."

"All right, I"ll trust you this once." Mu Huaitong showed her sharp canine teeth. "This is the last time I trust a man. If Teacher Shen fails to live up to my expectations, I will climb out of my grave, I will risk my very soul, in order to drink your blood and eat your flesh."

The hatred in her tone was piercing, but I didn"t feel fear, only grief for this girl who had experienced so much suffering at such a young age.

"I"ll tell you. Three years ago, Yin Yaqiu was pregnant. She told Lu Guangxi that she wanted to have the baby and get married, still living in their rental apartment. She didn"t care whether she had a house of her own, she just wanted the baby to have a family. Lu Guangxi disagreed. He told her to get an abortion. They argued. Lu Guangxi knocked her down. Yin Yaqiu was bleeding heavily. She asked Lu Guangxi to call an ambulance to save the child. Lu Guangxi thought that if he waited to call the ambulance, she would miscarry. But he only missed the opportunity to save her. Yin Yaqiu bled to death right before Lu Guangxi"s eyes."

Mu Huaitong"s voice reverberated through the underground parking lot. As tough as I was, I still felt cold all over.

"Lu Guangxi panicked when he found that Yin Yaqiu was dead. Instead of calling the police, he chose to cover it up. He cut up Yin Yaqiu"s body, boiled the parts clean, wrapped them up like leftovers, then buried them in the dump in the middle of the night. Three years later, can we still find them?" asked Mu Huaitong.

"Of course we can!" I said firmly. "This country still primarily handles garbage disposal by leaving it in a landfill. We"ll go to the dump to dig."

"Teacher Shen, do you know how big the dump is?" Mu Huaitong smiled. "How are you going to dig all by yourself? And what if I"m tricking you? After all, the first time we met, I pretended to be a ghost to trick you. If I trick you into spending ages digging through the dump, getting yourself covered in the smell of garbage, then tell you it was all a lie, will you be angry?"

"If it"s a trick then it"s a trick," I said with a carefree smile. "Then I"ll say the physical work was exercise. If this will make you less angry and make you able to graduate school and integrate into society faster, then that will be all for the good."

Mu Huaitong"s eyes suddenly reddened. She lowered her head and said, "Teacher, you can drive. We"ll go now."

"What about manager Lu?" I asked.

"Take him along. Let him see for himself," Mu Huaitong said darkly.

I was actually still concerned about Xiao Ning, but right now Mu Huaitong"s matter was more pressing. I sent a message to Xiao Ning: I"d meant to come see you at the hotel, but Mu Huaitong made an appointment with me to go to the dump and dig up some bones. I"ll find some time to see you tomorrow. Wait for me patiently. Don"t accept any harmful beliefs during this time. Read books with a positive influence. I"ll find some time to see you tomorrow.

Oh, I really was very worried about Xiao Ning.

In acceptance of my fate, I drove to the dump. Manager Lu didn"t wake up the whole way. He must have been very badly frightened.

At two in the morning, ninety percent of the city was already peacefully sleeping, and here I was digging through long-buried garbage at the dump. It was truly saddening. I hadn"t slept well for several nights, and my hair...

I sadly touched the increasingly spa.r.s.e hair on top of my head, picked up a shovel, and put my efforts towards digging. Mu Huaitong watched me from afar.

I dug and dug. My phone suddenly rang. It was Xiao Ning"s number.

"Where are you?" Xiao Ning asked.

"Due some reasons I currently have no way of verifying, I am at the dump destroying the accomplishments of our country"s sanitation workers." I sighed. "You should get to bed. Although you"re still young, going to bed late will still make you lose your hair. Your thick black hair is part of your appeal. You have to protect it."

"I"m going over there now. Wait for me."

Saying this, Xiao Ning hung up. At first I wanted to call him back to stop him from coming, but on second thought, it would also be bad to leave Xiao Ning alone at this time. It would be all right if he came and got some exercise with me.

The garbage dump really was huge. The landfill was handled by compacting layers of garbage with layers of soil between them. I didn"t know how thick the buildup below me was. If I really wanted to dig anything up, I was afraid it would take me another three years.

In about an hour, after three o"clock in the morning, Xiao Ning also came rushing to the dump. Seeing me aimlessly digging a hole, he came over to me. Not minding that I was dirty, he tapped me on the shoulder.

"You"re here?" I said. My head was covered in sweat. "I"d thought you might dig with me, but it really stinks. You"d better stay away. I can keep digging on my own."

Xiao Ning suddenly hugged me, taking no notice of the fact that I smelled awful. He buried his head against my shoulder and whispered, "I"ve never seen another person like you. Every moment you overturn everything I"ve ever known. Every action you take makes me honor you."

"If... if you don"t mind the smell, why don"t you help me dig? I"m getting tired," I said with a smile.

Xiao Ning took out his compa.s.s of evil and said, "I can help you find it. The place where the bones are buried must be full of resentful energy. The compa.s.s of evil can find it."

Thereupon his compa.s.s began to spin rapidly, showing no signs of stopping.

"…"

"The bones must be too scattered. The compa.s.s can"t fix on them." Ning Tiance looked up at me guilelessly.

His expression was so amusing that I leaned against him laughing, hardly able to stand.

"I know where they are," said Mu Huaitong, who had been peacefully watching me dig for over an hour.